Iowa Senate Candidate Says Obama Should Face Impeachment

In a newly published video, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joni Ernst tells a crowd of primary voters that, if elected, she would make sure President Obama faced impeachment hearingsfor allegedly violating the U.S. Constitution.

The video was shot in January during a Montgomery County GOP forum, but only surfaced on Tuesday. Ernst, who won the GOP nomination for Iowa’s open U.S. senate seat, was answering a question about Obama’s recess appointments during which she likened Obama to a dictator and aired the usual laundry list of conservative grievances.

“He is continually using executive orders, he is making appointments without authority, so yes, absolutely he is overstepping his bounds,” said Ernst. “I do think that, yes, he should face those repercussions, whether that’s removal from office, whether that’s impeachment. As a U.S. senator though, we have to push that issue, we can’t be silent on things like that.”

Latest polls show her in a statistical tie for the senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Tom Harkin (D).

Update:

Less than a day after her comments first surfaced, Joni Ernst released a statement on Tuesday evening walking back her earlier assertion that President Obama should face impeachment hearings for overstepping his constitutional authority.

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“To be clear, I have not seen any evidence that the President should be impeached,” she said in a statement to the Huffington Post, which first published Ernst’s comments. “I obviously do not believe the president is a dictator, but his repeated use of unilateral action sure makes him look like one.”